Sporting a new pixie haircut, Jennifer Lawrence was the talk of the town when the latest installment of The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire, premiered at Berlin, Germany, last month. At 22, Lawrence’s performance in the romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook got her the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award among other accolades. This year, Time magazine named her among the 100 most influential people in the world. She has five movies lined up for next year and is kicked about her role in Catching Fire.

Read on:

Revisiting your character for the second time.
I’ve always played a brand new character and Katniss is the same character but in completely new circumstances. She has changed. And it’s a character that I love, and a story and message that I’m passionate about, so I haven’t managed to get bored.

How was it working with the new director, Francis Lawrence?
Gary Ross and Francis Lawrence are very different, but each of them was perfect for their respective movies. Francis is a visionary, and he’s very good with actors. And Gary is too, as well as being very good with the script. Francis is very nice and completely normal. The only thing he does is twirl a pencil and when he does that, you know he’s stressed.

Reuniting with Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth
Josh and Liam are like my two best friends in the entire world and what are the chances that they would get cast, like, there are so many people in the world!

Did you connect better with your character this time?
Katniss remains a character I adore. It’s funny how Katniss and I have followed the same path. When I was nominated at the Oscars, I had to go to fancy red carpet events wearing couture gowns, and I didn’t feel like myself. I felt like an alien. That’s what Katniss feels like in the first Hunger Games chapter. Then in the second, she gets used to this new life. She realises she has to communicate with this new crowd and wear certain clothes, start wearing make-up… That’s kind of how I felt too.

Were things different on the sets since it was shot after you won an Oscar?
Nobody at work treats me differently. In fact, my Oscar made me the target. Every time I messed up my line, Woody Harrelson would be like, ‘Yeah… better give that Oscar back.’ I actually wished that everybody in this cast didn’t know about it. It would have made my life a lot easier.

What was the worst bit of the shoot?
Yes, I got double ear infection from one of the water scenes, because the water was really gross. And then I had to do a water stunt with a spinning cornucopia and when I fall off they have these jets and so I had to jump and the jets kind of blew into my ears and I couldn’t hear for a couple of weeks. Never went to a doctor, which
is not advisable.

Memorable anecdotes from the sets?
Jeffrey Wright handed me a Tiffany’s box, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, Jeffrey, you don’t have to do that!’ And I opened it, and there were just a million crickets and they all jumped out all over me and I screamed and cried and it was awful.
The movie is scheduled to release today.